Eclipse – The selected entry in Eclipse content assist is unreadable because of colours

colorseclipseeditormenu

In my Eclipse installation, the selected entry in the content assist menu is almost unreadable because the colour is white on white-greyish. See image below.

Highlighted entry unreadable

I can change the background and text colour of the non-selected entries in the list from eclipse preferences, but the selected entry is always the same colour and is always unreadable. I use the Eclipse Color Theme RecognEyes, but that should only affect the editor as far as I understand.

How do I make the text of the selected entry in the context assist menu readable?

Update

After reading m1shk4's answer it does indeed seem that Eclipse takes it's colours from the current gnome theme. However it does this in a kind of weird way.

The background colour of the content assist "window" is the input boxes background colour, and the text colour is the input boxes text colour. This all seems logical.

However the background colour of the selected entry is the windows background colour, but the text of the selected entry is not the background text colour.

See image below for an illustration.

Color mapping from gnome theme to eclipse

Does anybody know how to fix or workaround this issue?

Working workaround

It seems this issue is rather specific with the default gnome theme in Ubuntu. Switching to another gnome theme solves the issue for me.

Best Answer

Not sure if it's still in time but this might help all of you who are having the same problem, as I had:

Create a file ~/.gtkrc-2.0 and add this content to the file:

style "eclipse_fix" 
{ 
base[ACTIVE] = shade(0.7, "#4283d3") 
}

class "GtkTreeView" style "eclipse_fix"

Then just set Unity a new theme (in Configuration > appearance) and set again to the previous theme (Ambiance for instance). That will read the new file created above and the new color will take effect in eclipse.

Related Solutions

R – Setting the selected font colour to be different to unselected font colour in listbox control

I managed to do a similar thing in Silverlight 4 for a ListBox popping under an AutoCompleteBox, but it was copious amounts of Binging and XAML rape.

Basically you have to create a ListBoxItem style and force some control template hackery under it. This then you can apply on your ListBox and it should work.

I just copied the relevant code from the project I'm working on so you'll have to tweak it a bit, but it does change both the font and the selection rectangle colour on mouse over, so should be a great start.

    <Style x:Key="MyListBoxItemStyle" TargetType="ListBoxItem">
        <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="#FF4C4C4C" />
        <Setter Property="FontStyle" Value="Normal" />
        <Setter Property="FontWeight" Value="Bold"/>
        <Setter Property="FontFamily" Value="Arial"/>
        <Setter Property="Template">
            <Setter.Value>
              <ControlTemplate TargetType="ListBoxItem">
                <Grid Background="{TemplateBinding Background}">
                  <VisualStateManager.VisualStateGroups>
                    <VisualStateGroup x:Name="CommonStates">
                        <VisualStateGroup.Transitions>
                            <VisualTransition GeneratedDuration="0:0:0.2" To="MouseOver">
                                <VisualTransition.GeneratedEasingFunction>
                                    <CubicEase EasingMode="EaseOut"/>
                                </VisualTransition.GeneratedEasingFunction>
                            </VisualTransition>
                            <VisualTransition From="MouseOver" GeneratedDuration="0:0:0.1">
                                <VisualTransition.GeneratedEasingFunction>
                                    <CubicEase EasingMode="EaseOut"/>
                                </VisualTransition.GeneratedEasingFunction>
                            </VisualTransition>
                        </VisualStateGroup.Transitions>
                      <VisualState x:Name="Normal"/>
                      <VisualState x:Name="MouseOver">
                        <Storyboard>
                          <DoubleAnimationUsingKeyFrames Storyboard.TargetName="fillColor" Storyboard.TargetProperty="Opacity">
                            <SplineDoubleKeyFrame KeyTime="0" Value="1"/>
                          </DoubleAnimationUsingKeyFrames>
                          <ColorAnimation Duration="0" To="#FFFFFFFF" Storyboard.TargetName="contentPresenter" Storyboard.TargetProperty="(Control.Foreground).(SolidColorBrush.Color)" d:IsOptimized="True"/>
                        </Storyboard>
                      </VisualState>
                    </VisualStateGroup>
                    <VisualStateGroup x:Name="SelectionStates">
                      <VisualState x:Name="Unselected"/>
                      <VisualState x:Name="Selected">
                        <Storyboard>
                          <DoubleAnimationUsingKeyFrames Storyboard.TargetName="fillColor2" Storyboard.TargetProperty="Opacity">
                            <SplineDoubleKeyFrame KeyTime="0" Value="1"/>
                          </DoubleAnimationUsingKeyFrames>
                        </Storyboard>
                      </VisualState>
                    </VisualStateGroup>
                  </VisualStateManager.VisualStateGroups>
                  <Rectangle x:Name="fillColor" IsHitTestVisible="False" Opacity="0" RadiusX="1" RadiusY="1" Fill="#FF1f6cae"/>
                  <Rectangle x:Name="fillColor2" IsHitTestVisible="False" Opacity="0" Fill="#FF000000" RadiusX="1" RadiusY="1"/>
                  <ContentControl HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="{TemplateBinding Padding}" x:Name="contentPresenter" Content="{TemplateBinding Content}" ContentTemplate="{TemplateBinding ContentTemplate}" Foreground="#FF4c4c4c"/>
                </Grid>
              </ControlTemplate>
            </Setter.Value>
          </Setter>
        <Setter Property="FontSize" Value="14"/>
    </Style>

It should go straight under UserControl.Resources and you'll be ready to bind it.

Let me know if you managed or need more explanation!

Eclipse – How to change the color of the currently selected line in a code assist popup in Eclipse

I believe it is hidden in another part of Preferences. I personally wanted to change the highlighted or currently selected line color, and could not find anything in Colors and Fonts. Ends up it was in...

General -> Editors -> Text Editors

And you just need to go through every option in the "Appearance color options" box there. One is "Current line highlight" and that fixed my problem. I hope it helps yours!

Best Answer

Related Solutions

R – Setting the selected font colour to be different to unselected font colour in listbox control

Eclipse – How to change the color of the currently selected line in a code assist popup in Eclipse

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